The Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) is writing to strongly protest last week's
appellate court decision upholding a libel conviction against Amer
Abdel Hadi Nassef, a journalist who writes regularly for the
weekly newspaper Al-Ousbou'.

On May 20, an appellate court
upheld a three month prison sentence against Nassef for allegedly
defaming Egyptian writer Tharwat Abaza in an article published in
the daily newspaper Al-Ahrar in 1996. Nassef is currently serving
his sentence in Torah Mazraa Prison.

Nassef is the fourth Egyptian
journalist to be jailed for libel since February 1998, when an
appellate court sentenced Magdy Hussein, editor in chief of the
bi-weekly Al-Sha'b, and Muhammad Hilel, a reporter for the same
newspaper, to one year in prison for allegedly libeling Alaa'
al-Alfi, the son of former Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi. Just
weeks after the convictions of Hussein and Hilel, an appellate
court upheld a criminal libel conviction against Gamal Fahmy,
managing editor of the now-defunct weekly Al-Dustur and a
journalist with the weekly Al-Arabi, sentencing him to six months
in prison. Fahmy was accused of libeling Abaza in a 1995 column
published in Al-Arabi.

We note with concern that the
convictions of Hussein, Hilel, Fahmy, and Nassef represent the
first cases of journalists being jailed in Egypt for libel
offenses ever documented by CPJ. And we are further alarmed by the
dozens of other Egyptian journalists currently facing criminal
prosecution for libel and other journalism-related offenses.
According to the Cairo-based Center for Human Rights Legal Aid
(CHRLA), at least 72 editors and reporters are threatened by the
prospect of imprisonment for publication offenses in cases that
are either awaiting trial or are under investigation.

CPJ has written to Your
Excellency on previous occasions expressing grave concern over the
ongoing criminal prosecution of journalists in Egypt. CPJ deplores
the use of criminal libel statutes against members of the press in
response to material they publish, irrespective of the merits of a
specific case. Such punitive sanctions run counter to accepted
democratic practices for a free press and serve only to stifle
independent reporting.

CPJ, a nonpartisan
organization of journalists dedicated to the defense of press
freedom worldwide, views the imprisonment of Magdy Hussein,
Muhammad Hilel, Gamal Fahmy, and Amer Nassef as grave threats to
the press in Egypt. We urge Your Excellency to examine all
possible legal options to rescind the appellate court rulings
against Magdy Hussein, Muhammad Hilel, Gamal Fahmy, and Amer
Nassef in accordance with universally accepted norms for press
freedom. We also urge you to end future criminal prosecutions of
journalists for libel and to initiate reforms to abolish articles
in the Egyptian penal code which provide for the imprisonment of
journalists for publications offenses.

Thank you for your attention
to this important matter. We will continue to closely monitor all
developments with regard to these issues. We look forward to a
response at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

William A. Orme,
Jr.

Executive Director

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